Reminder: Service your batteries!

[glocke12]

As the new year approaches, just a friendly reminder to fully charge all your batteries that may not be getting regular use. You really should be doing this 3-4 times a year for any battery that rarely gets used.

With availability of DJI equipment becoming difficult in the US, it's that much more important to keep your batteries healthy, especially if you have a squadron of drones that don't get flown much. For me that's the Mini 3 Pro, Air 3, DJI FPV, Avata 1.

I made this mistake with my P4, leaving the batteries for years, and now it's a boat anchor. They won't charge.

To make it easy, I don't bother with what's getting used and what isn't... I just charge everything every 4 months.

This is something that I will never be able to keep track of and I certainly won't be running through all my batteries in a drone to get them to 60%

Am I wrong in thinking that just leaving them in the charging station is sufficient ? They charge, than discharge automatically when not in use without me having to do anything ?

 

[Droning on and on...]

Am I wrong in thinking that just leaving them in the charging station is sufficient ? They charge, than discharge automatically when not in use without me having to do anything ?

Yes, bad idea. Lipos don't like to be stored over 50-60%. To protect the cells DJI batteries will self-discharge after 7-10 days down to 60%. That's where they should stay until you need them, at which point you need to charge them up to 100%.

If unused for longer than 3-4 months the cells themselves will gradually discharge because of internal leakage. This is bad for them too – getting under 50%. So standard maintenance includes charging stored batteries every 3-4 months.

 

[MA2 317]

Thanks for posting Droning on and on....

I know longer fly my SPARK due to a crash and this thread got me thinking about the batteries.

My last flight was May 2023.

I charged the batteries a couple of times in 2024 along with the remote.

January 1, 2026 I checked the remote and it showed 3 bars lit !

The batteries showed no life but WTH, in the charger they went.

Low and behold, all nine batteries took a charge !!

 

[sawman]

Then we both have an incentive to acquire links to tutorials on how to recover them, by drilling holes, which @msinger referred to above, so we can convert our dead P4P paperweights into functional batteries. Not opposed to drilling holes, if it works!

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